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For my wonderful wife and daughter I made a mixed berry turnover with pig candy topped with homemade whipped cream. My wife was served a signature cocktail and our daughter had chocolate milk. This was cooked earlier this evening as our whole week has been busy. The mixed berry turnover has raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. It was tucked into a puff pastry crust(store bought) and brushed with butter. It was put onto the grill at a dome temp of 375, then cooked until golden brown. The pig candy was cooked first. Super simple to make. I brushed thick cut bacon with NH maple syrup then sprinkled brown sugar on top of both sides. On a baking rack and over a disposable pan they went. They went on the grill at 400 and were cooked until bacon was lightly browned. So onto the pics.

Some colder than others was kind of my motto for this cook and a few members will get it.... In any event I was lucky to have a pretty mild day. (What was it, 60 degrees in Georgia today?)

Had to burn off some funk so I decided to settle in for a bit.

Pig candy pre cook.

All done and yummy goodness!

I stole a piece for qc standards and what not.

Here's the turnovers going on the grill.

After about 10 minutes. I was looking because I didn't want it to go over. These challenges if for nothing else stand to bring me out of my comfort zone and I am thankful for that!

And the MONEY!

Signature cocktail is called a "chocolate strawberry". It consists of 1 ounce of frozen strawberry puree, 1 ounce of creme de cocoa(white), and half ounce of cognac in the shaker until frozen part is melted. Pour it straight into glass and top up(lightly) with champagne and garnish with a strawberry. It tastes as described and is quite refreshing. The dessert combination is a perfect complement of sweet, fresh, and savory components on your taste buds. The wife gave two thumbs up for both. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Made these gorgeous pork belly tacos tonight and would love to share how I did them. I was going for some Mexican and Asian flavors, and couldn't have been happier with the result. The only issue at all was a light spot on the pork due to liquid pooling there during the cook because the belly was a bit big for my standard Joe and I had to scrunch it a little.

PORK BELLY
1. I brined it for about 14 hours in a mix of pineapple juice, teriyaki, and soy sauce after scoring the fat sight relatively deeply
2. Dried the belly and rubbed it with Killer Hogs BBQ Rub on all sides
3. Smoked on Kamado Joe at 240 with some cherry wood to add a light fruity smoke favor (no wrapping because I wanted some meaty bite in the taco)
4. When I had internals around 185, I glazed the belly and cooked for another 20ish minutes
5. Broiled the belly inside for 2 minutes to tighten up the glaze and crisp the fat even more
6. Rested the meat for about 40 minutes (should have gone longer but people were too hungry :D )

GLAZE
1. Mix together raw honey, soy sauce, salt, worcestershire sauce, peach preservers (wanted pineapple to go with the brine but couldn't find it), apple cider vinegar, kosher salt, black pepper, hot bone sucking bbq sauce, and some secret super hot scotch bonnet hot sauce I bought in Anguilla. All of this is unmeasured and I mixed to taste.
2. Simmer on the stove until the mixture reduces a bit and thickens up, allow to cool off the heat

Combine according to your bread machine instructions. Mine says add fluid, flour, other - being certain the yeast does not come in contact with any water.

Use the knead/dough only quick cycle. Once the cycle is completed remove the dough ball and form a "log" blob. Have a pre-warmed pizza stone ready with a heating pad underneath set to high to keep it warm. The stone should be a gentle warm and not hot. Place a large clear bowl over the dough and allow an additional 1 to 1 1/2 hours to rise. I put some cornmeal on the stone to help prevent sticking.

Place in the kamado preheated to 350 degrees setup for indirect cooking and bake for about 50 minutes or until the loaf sounds hollow when you tap on it.

Cut and serve - be sure to try it still warm with butter!

Look at this topic for some picture of what it might look like:viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2819

Start by making up some graham cracker crust.
Ingredients:
1 package graham crackers
6 tbsp. melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon
12 slices bacon
4 jalapeños sliced into rings
Start by putting 1 package of graham crackers into a food processor to make crumbs. Now add the sugar and cinnamon and blend. Pour this into a mixing bowl and add the melted butter and mix until blended.
After smearing my CI pie pan with some butter flavored Crisco I press in the crust.
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Made up a bacon weave and placed it on the kamado.

Because I couldn’t flip the weave I placed my bacon press on the burner for 10 minutes. After it’s smoking hot I placed it on top of the weave.

While that cooks I prep my jalapeños.

On the grill they go for 15 minutes along with the pie crust for 7 minutes at 350.

After the weave is cooked I place it in the bottom of the pie crust.

Then the smoked jalapeño rings.

Now I make up the cream cheese pie filling.

Ingredients:
4 pkgs. (8 oz. size) cream cheese, softened
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
¼ cup cornstarch
3 tsp. vanilla
¾ cup heavy cream
To make filling: In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until very creamy. Add in the sugar and cornstarch gradually while beating at medium speed. Add eggs one at a time until completely mixed in. Add the vanilla and heavy cream and blend together. Pour into pie shell and bake at 350° for 35 – 40 minutes or until pie is set (may still jiggle slightly in the middle). Let cool on wire rack and then in the fridge to firm it up.

Now the pie goes into the kamado for 40 minutes at 350.

Here is the result.

Now the Topping.
Ingredients:
1 cup raspberries
1 cup sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
2 tbsp. raspberry chipotle sauce (from Costco)
2 tsp. finely chopped jalapeños (without seeds)
½ cup water
2 jalapeños sliced length wise into quarters
To make topping: Crush the raspberries in a small saucepan. (Hold back at least 9 for decoration) Add to the raspberries the sugar, cornstarch and raspberry chipotle sauce and blend well. Stir in the water and jalapeños. Cook over medium heat until mixture has thickened. Boil and stir for 1 minute. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
After letting the pie cool to room temp and then in the fridge I spread on the cooled Raspberry Jalapeño topping mixture and top with jalapeños and raspberries.

And decorate.

Plated shots.

Observations:
There were definite layers of flavor as I took a bite. At first it tastes pretty much like a standard cream cheese pie with fruit topping but shortly thereafter you get some of the Chipotle in the topping followed by the jalapeños and ending with the bacon. I was going for an ABT type of flavor and where it wasn’t exactly like an ABT it was a very good and unique flavor.
My wife liked it but would have preferred that I leave the bacon (not much of a meat eater) and the jalepeño out of the bottom and just had the spicy sweet topping. It would have been good this way but the layers of flavor wouldn’t have been there.